


Fading

by justsocialbutterfly



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, F/F, F/M, Post-Narnia, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Susan Pevensie Never Forgot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-18 18:48:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20196361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justsocialbutterfly/pseuds/justsocialbutterfly
Summary: There is something to be said about growing up and leaving things behindORThe Pevensie siblings, after Narnia, cling to their fading memories of Home





	Fading

_ **I. to the glistening eastern sea** _

The air is different in England and the trees don't speak to her as they once did ; but if Lucy closes her eyes, she can almost pretend she had never left Narnia at all.

She does not cry the loss of her world, though she feels it deep in her bones, aching and longing for home _(now, when she talks of home, she does not mean the house she grew up in for the first years of her life - she means wide blue seas, spring flowers blossoming, the walls of Cair Paravel filled with laughter and music and magic)_. She dances barefoot in the rain and talks to the trees and flowers as though they are real people _(they are, for her, because she had heard them talk back and seen them dance with her, light on their feet and smiling)_; her mother scolds her for the first and chalks up the latter to the fertile imagination of a child but her brothers and sister smile knowingly. Peter presses a kiss to her brow, Edmund looks at her with his sweet dark eyes and Susan whispers that it will get better _(they are still queens and kings, because royalty isn't erased by stepping out of a wardrobe, and once you have carried the world on your shoulders it's hard to forget the weight)_.

Lucy grows into her gangly limbs and freckled face, tucks flowers into her wild blond hair and rages against the injustices of the world _(she might not be in Narnia anymore but she is still Queen Lucy, the Valiant and she remembers the feel of a dagger and the thrill of the battle)_. She falls in and out of love with boys with soft smiles and laughing eyes and girls with adventure in their souls and restlessness in their bones and whispers tales of a land inside a wardrobe, dancing dryads and kindly fauns into their skins. She keeps her faith and vows to never forget, even in the days the longing is so strong that it feels like it might be easier to do as Susan did and forget, when she can scarcely breathe without smelling the tea she drank when she spent her days in the balcony where the view of the eastern sea she had been crowned for had been the most beautiful and her feet long for the Narnian soil _(she remembers in those days most of all, clings to these memories with the fierceness they had admired her for)_. Even then, even at her worse, Lucy Pevensie never doubted she would go back to Narnia. She goes thrice again - comes back two times _(the third time is permanent, but she does not mind too much)_. It's not the same Narnia she knew once, but it is still Narnia and she loves it fiercely and with all her heart. There were new kings, new places she had not yet discovered or knew about, new rules and people but it was still hers, though she was no longer the Queen who ruled it _(it had been hers long before she was crowned anyway)_.

When the train crashes and goes up in smoke, Lucy sees Narnian hills and a shining sun and smiles - it does not feel like dying at all. It just feels like coming home.

_ **II. to the great western woods ** _

Though it had been Aslam, and not he, that died on the Stone Table that night, Edmund had been reborn too. He remembered the price of mercy_ (Aslam, with his soft fur and calming voice. Aslam, who had been kinder and more just than Edmund deserved and had died for it)_. They name him Just - this Edmund who had died and lived again, this Edmund who knew mercy and who knew cruelty _(he would never be anything else than Edmund, who had betrayed them)_ \- they name him Just and he wonders if he'll ever live up to it. So Edmund Pevensie watches and listens, gathers information and secrets like anyone else would gather trinkets - he learns how to hold a man's life in his hands, how to take it and let it go. He watches, he listens and he passes the punishment _(he is Edmund the Just, but justice isn't black and white and a kingdom is not kept without blood)_.

He comes home _(though it isn't quite home anymore, is it?)_ and nothing had changed but him. There was a wisdom in his eyes that had been borne of experience, a steadiness in his hands that came from war. Edmund chose his words more carefully now, regarded his actions with more judgment - his brother and sisters had forgiven and forgotten what he'd done as a child in Narnia but he had not. He kept it close, the ease with which he had betrayed his siblings for a warm place to stay and sweets to eat _(no one judged him harder for it than himself)_.

The nightmares are much worse during winter, when there is no one but his thoughts and the cold to keep him company. He dreams of being led astray, of his hands bright red with his siblings blood _(it would have been his fault, whatever might have happened to them, because he had been weak and selfish and wanted the promise of safety, however untrue it would turn out to be)_. He dreams of Jadis' sharp sword, piercing his armor and his skin _(there is no scar there anymore to remind him, because it had happened to another boy in another land, and he mourns the loss of it most of all)_ and of how cold he felt lying in the battlefield ground, dying. Edmund wakes up with the taste of blood and Turkish Delight in the back of his mouth and prays fervently for guidance and strength. He did not have Lucy's faith, but he did believe _(he had to, or else what was the point of having been handed back his life not once, but twice)_. Edmund found a sense of purpose and nobility in the midst of the pain, had welcomed the weight of the crown as a way to remember_ (it could not have been heavier than the weight of his sins)_ but he was not in Narnia anymore and sometimes it was hard to convince himself that he was no longer the selfish little boy he’d been when he first set foot in the wardrobe.

He returns from Narnia _(once, twice, thrice)_ to an England that had not changed, everytime different, and deals with it as best as he can.

_ **III. to the clear northern skies** _

The day Mr. Pevensie is called to go to war, he takes Peter aside and tells him that he is the head of the house now and that he must protect his mother and siblings _(Peter will carry these words across two lifetimes, will grow up twice with them written in his bones and branded in his mind)_. When his mother sends him and his siblings away, she tells him to be brave and look after the others _(he doesn't hear her voice as he slays the wolf to save his sisters or when he defies the Witch when she tries to take his brother a second time, but he thinks he might have had if his heart had not been beating so loudly)_. He didn't want a war, he didn't want a throne - he wanted his brother and his sisters and his home. Peter Pevensie was not a warrior, and yet they thrust him into a war he did not know how to fight.

They give him a sword and a crown, a boy-king with a kingdom at his fingertips because a prophecy had said that this is how it should be, and call him Magnificent _(he doesn't feel magnificent at all)_. He grows with the responsability and learns how to rule. He builts his life in Narnia, learns how to breath through the weight of a kingdom in his shoulders, learns how to stand proud and tall and to fill a room with his voice and his presence and then in the blink of an eye it's all gone. Peter Pevensie falls out of the wardrobe and lands on arms too skinny to be his and unscarred hands. When he talks, it is not his voice that comes out. He is someone else yet also himself and the wardrobe is just a wardrobe, no matter how much they wish it wasn't. He does not forget that he used to be a king and that he is not anymore. People do not part for him when he passes by, or regard him as anything more than a child - all the wisdom of a thousand wars had suddenly vanished, burried beneath a boyish face _(if they knew how much he had done and given up and how many people he killed, how bloodied his hands had become because he had a kingdom to protect)_.

It does not matter.

He's the oldest. Their rock, their protector and guardian _(he was a brother long before he was a king)_ and he must be strong for them. So he holds Lucy when she cries, talks Edmund through his nightmares, sings Narnian lullabies with Susan at night and says nothing. It does not matter that he feels as though he might fall apart sometimes, or that he misses the things he had left behind with a fierce and painful kind of longing. It does not matter. He must be strong for them, so he is. Peter grows and rebuilts his life in England. He adapts, because adapting to one's surroundings was the mark of a great warrior and Peter had been one of the greatest _(they had called him magnificent once but now he was just Peter Pevensie again, no honorifics or titles to live up to except that of son and brother. If felt strange and freeing all at once)_. He takes on leadership roles like he had been born to lead, carries the responsibilities with the ease of someone who was used to carry much heavier things. He goes to Narnia once again_ (it's the last time but he doesn't know it yet)_ but it's not _his_ Narnia. It is somehow worse than leaving it behind, coming back to a place who used to be so familiar and now seems strange and very far away. His people, his friends, are long dead and buried and there is no magic anymore. He wonders, guilt clawing at his chest, if it could have been avoided - if Narnia would still be like it once was, if the Pevensies had stayed. Lucy, in her faith and devotion, would have said it was meant to be like this, that Aslam had a plan for them, just like he always did - Peter wanted to believe it too.

He leaves Narnia behind, but keeps the memory of it close to his heart.

_ **IV. to the radiant southern sun** _

Susan tries not to be bitter. She tries not to think that they had torn her away from home twice and expected her to make her peace with it. But she does not have Lucy's unwavering faith, or Edmund's steadiness or Peter's determination. She is not Valiant, or Just or Magnificent - she is just Gentle _(it takes her long to figure out that she did not need to be anything else)_. Susan Pevensie was a Queen once _(she is a Queen still)_ and now she's just a girl again, small and weak and powerless. There is no crown to be laid upon her head, no armor of politeness to hide behind, no intricate dresses made with imported silks to help straighten her spine and keep her head high but she makes do with what she has - wears the brightest shades of lipstick, the best nylons and the prettiest dresses. It's not quite the same, and nothing would ever be, but it's enough.

Susan's forgotten, her siblings whisper. She has not, but God, how she wishes she had. Forgetting would have meant no more sleepless nights humming old songs no one in England would recognize, no more waiting for the trees to speak and no more of the painful realization that they never would. Susan does not forget, no, but she does walk away from it and it should have been enough to make the ache in her heart lessen _(it isn't and it would never be, because how could she ever stop missing Narnia)_.

Susan's phone rings in the middle of the night and she just knows _(she had been left out yet again, left behind, left alone)_. By the time the call ends, she had already begun to make a list of tasks. She sits in the front row of the church, clad in her best nylons and wearing a bright red lipstick, and listens to the eulogy without shedding a tear _(she thinks of Aslam, thinks how could you? and why me? but there are no answers for her. there is only the priest's voice talking about piety and heaven - it's an answer in itself, though Susan does not admit it)_. She goes home. She opens the doors to her wardrobe, touches the wooden, solid back of it _(what was she expecting, it was only ever a wardrobe, only ever a foolish hope and it would never be anything more than that)_ and cries. How unfair, her heart rages, how cruel. When she is done, Susan gathers herself, wipes her tears and breathes. She gets up in the morning and does it all over again the next day until she doesn't feel like choking on memories anymore.

Susan goes on. She goes on, because what else could she do?

**Author's Note:**

> The siblings are in this order because it's the order in which they discovered Narnia - Susan is last only because I thought it was poetic to make the last living Pevensie also be the last in this narrative.
> 
> I guess that's all? Please be kind to me, I'm very small and very soft and English isn't my first language


End file.
